NPR News

Spanish authorities say they've rescued 593 migrants at sea in just one day.

The Spanish Maritime Safety & Rescue Agency, also called Salvamento Marítimo, said it recovered the people on 15 boats Wednesday in the Strait of Gibraltar and the Alboran Sea, the western part of the Mediterranean Sea.

In recent months, mothers who nearly died in the hours and days after giving birth have repeatedly told ProPublica and NPR that their doctors and nurses were often slow to recognize the warning signs that their bodies weren't healing properly.

Brandon Martinez, 16, was one of nearly 40 undocumented immigrants found on a blistering summer day inside an unventilated trailer parked at a San Antonio Wal-Mart. Ten died, and Brandon barely survived.

Federal officials who interviewed some of the survivors say that the human cargo was assembled and loaded into the truck in the border city of Laredo.

Some had paid smugglers to take them across the Rio Grande in rafts. One immigrant said there were as many as 200 people in the back of the truck.